Freeway Connector to Close for Retrofitting

The southbound truck route that connects the Antelope Valley and Golden State freeways will be closed for seven weeks while construction crews seismically retrofit the section’s bridge and columns, a California Highway Patrol officer said Monday.

Trucks will be diverted to the automobile lanes until the connector road is reopened June 3.

The bridge is “not the actual overpass that collapsed in the Jan. 17 earthquake, but is in the same area,” CHP Officer Kerri Hawkins said. “They will strengthen the bridge so it can withstand more powerful earthquakes.”

Workers on the $1.6-million project will enlarge and deepen the bridge footings and wrap the columns with steel casings, Hawkins said.

Under the state’s Seismic Retrofit Program, 701 bridges out of 2,556 were targeted in Los Angeles and Ventura counties for strengthening, Hawkins said.

“There is just more wear and tear on the (truck route) roadways,” Hawkins said. “The average car weighs 3,000 pounds, while the average truck weighs 40,000.”

State officials hope to complete 134 of the designated bridges by 1995 at a cost of $96 million, she said.